ballast wiring

[PUFF MONKEY]

is it possible to wire a 1000w HPS ballast to light 10 100w bulbs ?????

 

[Kupunakane]

Yo Ho PUFF MONKEY,

If you place the bulbs in series then one burning out will kill the circuit, and if you choose to place them in Parallel then they each will need to be phased, and you will still have a few problems that look something like this;

More lights in series means more resistance and by Ohm's law a decrease in current.
lights in a parallel circuit are like their own little circuit demanding enough current to run, and the more of them you have the greater the current flow is in the entire circuit. It can get dangerous. It's like a power strip with 6 or 7 sockets in parallel. It's easy to over amp that circuit. Thank God for circuit breakers.
Bulbs in series will not have the same current flow. Each bulb has a lot of resistance and reduces the current. They all experience the same voltage which is not even current flow, and as I said they will need to be phased.

This can be done, but remember that the ballast isn't designed to handle that much initial draw, or resistance, and at best your flirting with something that can be potentially dangerous.

My recommendation would be to have it all professionally wired by a competent electrician.

smoke in peace
KingKahuuna

 

[KaliKitsune]

^^^^ Agreed - don't even bother. You'd need at least a 1500w ballast to handle the extra amount of juice needed for the initial arc inside each lamp upon startup, and even then, series wiring that much power is asking for trouble without having a competent electrician to come in, wire it himself, make sure everything stays in phase, and make sure everything is safe.

1500w is a LOT of power, that's getting close to the rated load for each circuit normally inside a house (15-20A @ 110v)

Just get a 1000w bulb. You'll be a lot happier and you'll have less heat problems and less loss of energy due to conversion for ten bulbs instead of one. Kinda like the old adage about a bunch of smaller fires will warm you better than one big one - same kinda applies to lights and grow rooms. It's harder to cool multiple bulbs and harder to cool a room with multiple heat sources.

 

[PUFF MONKEY]

i already have a 1000w bulb...i was wanting to put 10 100w bulbs around the outside for side lighting.....thought it sounded cool.....how much extra yield would i see if i were to put 6-10 100w HPS lights for side lights...cause my plants are freakin' huge for indoor,

 

[KaliKitsune]

Extra light won't necessarily get you a better yield - and you must be careful about photosynthetic poisoning (though I've never heard of it happening to a pot plant before, I've seen it happen with many other plants.)

If you were going to do supplemental lighting, I'd just use fluorescent tubes. You really don't want the power drain and heat issues of ten extra HID bulbs, save money and power.

 

[PUFF MONKEY]

Extra light won't necessarily get you a better yield - and you must be careful about photosynthetic poisoning (though I've never heard of it happening to a pot plant before, I've seen it happen with many other plants.)

If you were going to do supplemental lighting, I'd just use fluorescent tubes. You really don't want the power drain and heat issues of ten extra HID bulbs, save money and power.

like mounting 4 T5's per side(54w) ????

 

[KaliKitsune]

That might be overkill, two on each side would probably suffice if they're of the 4-foot variety. I'm only using one set of 4 T5s for a multitude of different plants (Mint, Japanese Maple, Herb) and I still have light leftover for stuff like my venus flytrap and carnivorous pitcher plants.

 

[time4tokin20s]

That might be overkill, two on each side would probably suffice if they're of the 4-foot variety. I'm only using one set of 4 T5s for a multitude of different plants (Mint, Japanese Maple, Herb) and I still have light leftover for stuff like my venus flytrap and carnivorous pitcher plants.

What kind of lighting schedule does your flytrap and pitcher plants take?

 

[PUFF MONKEY]

That might be overkill, two on each side would probably suffice if they're of the 4-foot variety. I'm only using one set of 4 T5s for a multitude of different plants (Mint, Japanese Maple, Herb) and I still have light leftover for stuff like my venus flytrap and carnivorous pitcher plants.

carnivorous pitcher plant sounds kickass .....i just smoked 3 flavors out of my first grow....have you any idea the stone ???

 

[KaliKitsune]

What kind of lighting schedule does your flytrap and pitcher plants take?

They're flexible - the flytrap can do 24 hours continuous light as long as it's not too strong, the pitcher plant is almost the same way, but seems to prefer 16/8 in filtered light most.

 

[time4tokin20s]

They're flexible - the flytrap can do 24 hours continuous light as long as it's not too strong, the pitcher plant is almost the same way, but seems to prefer 16/8 in filtered light most.

I've always wanted to grow plants like that but never got around to it.I'm gonna check more into it.

 

[KaliKitsune]

I've always wanted to grow plants like that but never got around to it.I'm gonna check more into it.

Pitcher plants, just as a side note, require some of the choicest water - Tap run thru a Brita filter ain't gonna cut it. Leave a couple gallons out in the sun and uncovered for a day, it doesn't like bases like chlorine.

 

[lildaddybigbud]

Maybee you could try r/o
water= Reverse osmosis water like distelled water no? easy to get bolth everywhere just a thought

 

[born2killspam]

KingKahuna is right.. You'd need to re-engineer the ballast in a big way.. Read up on the purpose of the bigass capacitor, and ignitor in a ballast to understand a bit better.. This ain't no resistive load..
And if you were to redisign the ballast properly you'd realize that it doesn't scale linearly with power at all.. These things are designed to run at peak efficiency/safety already..
For instance you can overdrive a light if you alter the ballast, but it won't give you as high an efficiency, lowers the lamp's life expectancy, alters the CRI, and can add some all around danger.. Its popular for ppl who tweak projector tv's etc, but just not worth it in this game..

 

[leafminer]

You absolutely CAN'T wire multiple small HID lamps to one ballast. Either in series or in parallel. In series the setup simply would not light. In parallel one or more lamps will draw more than others and the unbalanced load will melt those lamps. You'd probably get a fire.